{"id":1915,"date":"2024-12-16T15:34:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T23:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2024-12-16T15:34:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T23:34:47","slug":"saturday-moemory-for-december-14-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/saturday-moemory-for-december-14-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"SATURDAY MOEMORY for December 14, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

SATURDAY MEMORY<\/span><\/p>\n

December 14, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

I was a junior in high school in 1955, and I fancied myself a tennis player. My fancy was reinforced by winning a major tennis tournament for juniors. The prize for winning that tournament was a series of lessons from Pancho Gonzales. Pancho was ranked the number one professional tennis player in the world, and winning this prize swelled my head big-time.<\/p>\n

The lessons occurred on the lone court at Exposition Park in Los Angeles. Panhco called me \u201cboy.\u201d After instructions and a bit of small talk, Pancho said, \u201cOK, boy, let\u2019s get to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I walked to one side of the court, and he took the other. He had the tennis balls, so I presumed he was going to serve. He was known for having the best and strongest serve in the game. \u201cLesson one,\u201d he shouted and motioned me to come to the net. This struck me as odd because you don\u2019t serve at someone standing at the net. Volley, yes, but not serve.<\/p>\n

But he served.<\/p>\n

His serve came straight at my eyes, and I barely fell out of the way in time. As I got up, he came to the net and he said, \u201cBoy, what\u2019s that on the ground?\u201d \u201cMy racket,\u201d I responded. I had dropped it as I fell. \u201cAnd what\u2019s it for?\u201d he asked me. \u201cTo hit the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK. Lesson two.\u201d He walked back to the service line; I picked up my racket and I somehow knew I was to stay at the net. Again, he served straight at my eyes. Somehow, I managed not to duck or to fall. But I mainly used my racket to protect my face, and the ball went flying off it out of bounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what lesson three is?\u201d<\/p>\n

I took what seemed like a lot of time to come up with the answer. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, and worthless. But somehow, I knew what lesson three was. I didn\u2019t say, what lesson three was, but I did say, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took my position at the net. I swung my racket back and forth. I looked Pancho in the eye. I said, \u201cserve!\u201d He did. I kept my eye on the ball. I stepped into position, and I hit the ball squarely at Pancho. To my surprise, he let the ball hit him.<\/p>\n

He laughed. He came to the net. He shook my hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got what it takes, kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

From that moment, I wanted to be a pro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SATURDAY MEMORY December 14, 2024 I was a junior in high school in 1955, and I fancied myself a tennis player. My fancy was reinforced by winning a major tennis tournament for juniors. The prize for winning that tournament was a series of lessons from Pancho Gonzales. Pancho was ranked the number one professional tennis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1916,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/1916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}